The New Films staff strive to create a fun and welcoming environment for all users. This forum is a place for discussing the films, which means that you think the films are worth discussing. Constructive criticism (as deemed by the moderating staff) is welcome and encouraged. Bashing of any kind will not be tolerated anywhere outside The Sanctuary thread. See the new rules thread here. Bans can and will be handed out to anyone who doesn't abide by the forum rules.

In an effort to re-start the discussion about who the baddie will be, I will pose this question to you all:

With the script done, obviously they know who the villain is, so with all the talk about creating a new continuity for Star Wars, do you think that the way they use the villain may be a little different than originally intended? And if so, do you think the villain will be used to close this saga, or used purposely to keep it open?

To me, it looks like they want set thing sup so that everything is properly related. That said, I would think it made the most sense to close this saga with Episode 9, and then move forward in an unrestricted sense with a new saga that does not interfere with the events of the current one.

In terms of the villain, this would point towards a fully connected, somewhat familiar character for this trilogy.

Click to expand...

Your question about continuity is an interesting one, but I'm not sure how to respond to it. But now that we know that SW movies will keep being made, I think certain kinds of closures will be different. That is, maybe a villain is defeated conclusively, but the idea that a particular group like the Sith will never return is less likely to be used. Lucas only came up with that idea because he thought the films were done. But now that they're not, LFL and Disney will want as much leeway as possible moving forward, so I expect the ST mainly to be about explaining how the Sith can return. And perhaps this aspect might connect to the new continuity -- in TCW we may see something new about the Sith that alludes to their possible return in the ST.

So, in case you haven't read the article that goes along with the Kanan Rebels video, the text describes the Inquisitor as "a Sith villain."

Since then, Kanan has been on the down-low, too. He keeps his lightsaber under lock and key and brandishes a blaster instead to avoid the attention of the Empire, especially the Inquisitor (a Sith villain) and his Stormtroopers. But Kanan gets his Force-ful groove back with his crew on the spaceship The Ghost and fights back against the imperial menace.

Click to expand...

So if we can trust this description, and I'm not sure if we can, but if we can, then it could be telling us that the Sith Order is expanded during the Dark Times. Either the Rule of Two has been dropped, or new categories of Sith have been created, and may be canon.

How does this relate to the ST? It gives a clear explanation for how the Sith might return. If there was more to the Sith than just Vader and Sidious in ROTJ, then some of these ... lesser Sith might have either survived or tried to have trained new Sith.

This could also mean the Prophecy only relates to Sidious and Vader, but not these lesser Sith who, by the time of the ST, could be more powerful.

So, in case you haven't read the article that goes along with the Kanan Rebels video, the text describes the Inquisitor as "a Sith villain."

Since then, Kanan has been on the down-low, too. He keeps his lightsaber under lock and key and brandishes a blaster instead to avoid the attention of the Empire, especially the Inquisitor (a Sith villain) and his Stormtroopers. But Kanan gets his Force-ful groove back with his crew on the spaceship The Ghost and fights back against the imperial menace.

Click to expand...

So if we can trust this description, and I'm not sure if we can, but if we can, then it could be telling us that the Sith Order is expanded during the Dark Times. Either the Rule of Two has been dropped, or new categories of Sith have been created, and may be canon.

How does this relate to the ST? It gives a clear explanation for how the Sith might return. If there was more to the Sith than just Vader and Sidious in ROTJ, then some of these ... lesser Sith might have either survived or tried to have trained new Sith.

This could also mean the Prophecy only relates to Sidious and Vader, but not these lesser Sith who, by the time of the ST, could be more powerful.

Click to expand...

I think the Inquisitor is more like Ventress or Maul in that he's a Dark Acolyte (this is the official term) rather than a true Sith Lord. To become a true Sith Lord you need to be fully trained by the master and given the title of Darth. In the Plagueis novel, Sidious actually went behind Plagueis' back and gave Maul the title towards the end in hopes that Plagueis would be bumped off by the time he could fully train him. Maul only had a rudimentary Sith training which was basically lightsaber and assassination skills, but nothing really advanced like Force lightning or Sith Sorcery.

If we get a Sith villain in the ST, I hope it's the real McCoy with the Darth title and everything, and not a left over Dark Acolyte. I think the audience needs a villain that's at least on par with Sidious.

The Sith should be extinct after the death of Vader and Sidious. Nothing from the Yuuzhan Vong War on should remain canon. Only Dark Jedi now remain in the galaxy to threaten the Jedi. Them or the Mandalorians.

So, in case you haven't read the article that goes along with the Kanan Rebels video, the text describes the Inquisitor as "a Sith villain."

Click to expand...

Ahsoka refers to Ventress as "Sith" in TCW.

I could see the Emperor not caring too much about what his Dark Side minions call themselves- what matters to him is how much training they receive - and he only reveals the deeper secrets of Sith lore to Vader.

In the ANH novel it says when introducing Vader "Fear followed in the footsteps of all the Dark Lords"

Perhaps the Emperor even lets his goons call themselves Dark Lords of the Sith if they want to - but with only him and Vader being the inner circle with the "Darth" prefix.

One fear that I have always had with an expansion of Star Wars is the blurring the lines of the story. The Rule of Two has been at very least diluted since TCW, and it looks like Rebels is going to dilute the idea that only Yoda and Obi-Wan survived the purge.

Don't get me wrong here, I totally understand that Order 66 didn't wipe out all of the Jedi in a nice neat montage at the end of Ep III, and I'm sure that going into Rebels we can assume that Kanan dies before the events of Ep IV. However, if you remove TCW and consider the films only (which is what the general pubic is aware of), we the audience are being told that:

There are only two Sith at a time.

Only Obi-Wan and Yoda survive the purge (no matter how long it took)

Anything that happened in between had little to do with the story being told aside from "this is the time that the Empire tightened is grip and oppressed the galaxy and Obi-Wan watched over Luke's upbringing."

To me, the idea of showing us The Clone Wars was a great way to show us the heroic side of Anakin as well as his relationship with Obi-Wan. I think the show did accomplish this, however I think they went a little too far with some elements, including the Sith. Again, my opinion, I think they should have very well established Ventress as not being a Sith by simply having folks like Dooku say things like "Your red saber implies something you are not." I did like that once Sidious was aware of Maul, he went out and told him (and us) that he was basically fired from the Sith and no longer part of the team.

I fear that Kanan, or maybe Rebels as a whole, is going to muddy the idea of not only surviving Jedi, but also the beginnings of the Rebel Alliance. My understanding is that this is what Rebels is about, no? If so, I would say that it has to include Bail Organa, who has not been mentioned in anything about Rebels.......

People have always been excited about seeing the things that went on during The Clone Wars and between Ep III and IV, but I have always seen those areas as time periods where we know what happened by the situations in the films, and the particular events were not part of the story being told. In other words, you don't need to see every single thing that happens in order to tell the story in a compelling way.

Today, these areas are apparently being used to set up a new continuity, which will presumably include Ep VII. The problem that I have with that is that they are going back, and like I said, clouding the waters about things that have been long standing elements of Star Wars.

However, if you remove TCW and consider the films only (which is what the general pubic is aware of), we the audience are being told that:

There are only two Sith at a time.

Only Obi-Wan and Yoda survive the purge (no matter how long it took)

Anything that happened in between had little to do with the story being told aside from "this is the time that the Empire tightened is grip and oppressed the galaxy and Obi-Wan watched over Luke's upbringing."

Click to expand...

One of the reasons (among six or seven of them) I don't like TCW series is that it did not expand the story, it changed it. And by that I mean the reason nr. 1.
I did not get the idea from the OT that only Obi-Wan and Yoda survived the purge. The closest thing to that are Yoda's words in ROTJ when he says that when he dies, Luke will be the only remaining Jedi. There is no problem in number of the survivors of the purge, just by the time of the OT (or ROTJ), Yoda and Luke (and Kenobi) should be the only one.

People have always been excited about seeing the things that went on during The Clone Wars and between Ep III and IV, but I have always seen those areas as time periods where we know what happened by the situations in the films, and the particular events were not part of the story being told. In other words, you don't need to see every single thing that happens in order to tell the story in a compelling way.

Today, these areas are apparently being used to set up a new continuity, which will presumably include Ep VII. The problem that I have with that is that they are going back, and like I said, clouding the waters about things that have been long standing elements of Star Wars.

Click to expand...

Again, agreed. Setting up the ST continuity by the events, locations or characters from animated series (or books; hint: Plagueis) would be a very bad move. But I can't see that happening.

Good post, LunarMoth. I think the idea that there are surviving Jedi in Rebels is actually set up by Yoda in ROTS when he has Obi-Wan change the signal in the temple to tell Jedi to flee Coruscant, not return to it. The movie is telling the audience there will be more survivors than Yoda and Obi.

As for the Sith, I'm glad they are muddying the waters because, quite honestly, the idea that there are only two Sith is too limiting. I think Sidious and Plagueis always planned to dump the rule once they took power because, as Plagueis says in his book, the real goal is the expansion of Sith ideology. That means the creation of a much larger Order of Sith, albeit probably with a Master and Apprentice at the top of the food chain. Think of it like the Democrats or Republicans controlling all three branches of the US Government. President, VP, and then a whole range of other positions from Secretary of State to the Senate and then the House of Reps. They would all be part of the Dem or Rep party (the Sith Order), but with a hierarchical chain of command and power.

So if you cut the top two heads off, you still have a Sith Order. Like the Republican Party survives although the presidential candidate loses. Maybe these lesser Sith, or Dark Acolytes, don't have the same amount of training as the Master and Apprentice, but let's face it -- they are still apprentices, sort of like padawans, if they are being taught to use the darkside in any way.

Now how far of a step is it between being a Dark Acolyte and being a Sith Master or Apprentice? Is it an impossible step? Can the knowledge be gained without the presence of a Master or Apprentice?

Yes. Why? The Sith Order didn't always exist. At some point you had a Jedi or Force user who began experimenting with the darkside. At first they couldn't do things like use lightening, but after enough experimentation and practice, they figure it out. It might take time, but the ST is 30 years after ROTJ. Plenty of time for a new Master to be coming into their full power.

FWIW the existence of Sith holocrons can ensure that the teachings of the Sith Order survive the deaths of its practitioners. In the EU, the Telos Holocron contained a repository of Sith knowledge passed over many generations of Sith Lords, with the last gatekeeper being none other than Darth Sidious. I could easily see Palpatine keeping his vast knowledge of the Sith and the dark side in a holocron like the Telos Holocron, With a visual simulacrum of the guardians contained within, the ST could possibly introduce Palpatine as nothing more than a holocron gatekeeper, passing on his knowledge to one deemed worthy of being his successor. Holocrons such as these can ensure the continued survival of the Sith Order. As such, I'd love for a Sith holocron to appear in the ST, perhaps in the hands of the villain or their apprentice/some lesser dark side Force user.

FWIW the existence of Sith holocrons can ensure that the teachings of the Sith Order survive the deaths of its practitioners. In the EU, the Telos Holocron contained a repository of Sith knowledge passed over many generations of Sith Lords, with the last gatekeeper being none other than Darth Sidious. I could easily see Palpatine keeping his vast knowledge of the Sith and the dark side in a holocron like the Telos Holocron, With a visual simulacrum of the guardians contained within, the ST could possibly introduce Palpatine as nothing more than a holocron gatekeeper, passing on his knowledge to one deemed worthy of being his successor. Holocrons such as these can ensure the continued survival of the Sith Order. As such, I'd love for a Sith holocron to appear in the ST, perhaps in the hands of the villain or their apprentice/some lesser dark side Force user.

The Inquisitor's a physically imposing threat, says Rebels executive producer Simon Kinberg, "but what's really terrifying is his ability to read people, understand their fears, prey on those fears and almost twist their perceptions so that they don't totally have control over themselves any more."

Click to expand...

So this not-Sith has the skill to wield a double lightsaber and invade people telepathically. But if we don't call him a Sith, then the Rule of Two somehow still applies (by the use of magic).

Aren't we kind of arguing semantics here? It seems to me that the difference between "Dark Jedi" and "Sith Lord" is one of title. Also, as I recall, the term "Dark Jedi" is an EU creation from before the prequels came about and we knew what "Sith" even were. I don't know if Lucas ever used that term to describe a character. I guess what I'm getting to is if it cackles like a Sith and uses a red lightsaber like a Sith, you might as well call it what it is instead of using a "softer" term as a technicality to get around a larger issue (like the Sith supposedly being extinct).

However, if you remove TCW and consider the films only (which is what the general pubic is aware of), we the audience are being told that:

There are only two Sith at a time.

Only Obi-Wan and Yoda survive the purge (no matter how long it took)

Anything that happened in between had little to do with the story being told aside from "this is the time that the Empire tightened is grip and oppressed the galaxy and Obi-Wan watched over Luke's upbringing."

Click to expand...

One of the reasons (among six or seven of them) I don't like TCW series is that it did not expand the story, it changed it. And by that I mean the reason nr. 1.
I did not get the idea from the OT that only Obi-Wan and Yoda survived the purge. The closest thing to that are Yoda's words in ROTJ when he says that when he dies, Luke will be the only remaining Jedi. There is no problem in number of the survivors of the purge, just by the time of the OT (or ROTJ), Yoda and Luke (and Kenobi) should be the only one.

People have always been excited about seeing the things that went on during The Clone Wars and between Ep III and IV, but I have always seen those areas as time periods where we know what happened by the situations in the films, and the particular events were not part of the story being told. In other words, you don't need to see every single thing that happens in order to tell the story in a compelling way.

Today, these areas are apparently being used to set up a new continuity, which will presumably include Ep VII. The problem that I have with that is that they are going back, and like I said, clouding the waters about things that have been long standing elements of Star Wars.

Click to expand...

Again, agreed. Setting up the ST continuity by the events, locations or characters from animated series (or books; hint: Plagueis) would be a very bad move. But I can't see that happening.

Gundark is also mentioned.
In a dilemma between Plagueis and gundark as the ST villains, I'd choose gundark. Mainly because there was no fulfilled prophecy by which they were destroyed. As opposed to the Sith.

Gundark is also mentioned.
In a dilemma between Plagueis and gundark as the ST villains, I'd choose gundark. Mainly because there was no fulfilled prophecy by which they were destroyed. As opposed to the Sith.

People are putting way too much stock in this whole prophecy thing in a franchise that has a tendency of making things up as it goes along and wonderfully fitting them all together in the end. Killing off two Sith does not and cannot possibly mean that you've killed off the entire order for ever and ever. If someone, somewhere, somehow stumbles upon any Sith records and starts living his life according to the doctrins held therein - he'd be just as Sithy as all those Darths we all know and love.

People are putting way too much stock in this whole prophecy thing in a franchise that has a tendency of making things up as it goes along and wonderfully fitting them all together in the end. Killing off two Sith does not and cannot possibly mean that you've killed off the entire order for ever and ever. If someone, somewhere, somehow stumbles upon any Sith records and starts living his life according to the doctrins held therein - he'd be just as Sithy as all those Darths we all know and love.

Click to expand...

Not to mention that the Jedi had a prophecy that supposedly dealt with the destruction of the Sith. The same Sith that they thought were extinct for 1,000 years.

Kind of odd to have a prophecy desroying something you thought was already destroyed.

Then there is the whole "I do not think that the Sith could've RETURNED without us knowing" dialogue

Gundark is also mentioned.
In a dilemma between Plagueis and gundark as the ST villains, I'd choose gundark. Mainly because there was no fulfilled prophecy by which they were destroyed. As opposed to the Sith.

Aren't we kind of arguing semantics here? It seems to me that the difference between "Dark Jedi" and "Sith Lord" is one of title. Also, as I recall, the term "Dark Jedi" is an EU creation from before the prequels came about and we knew what "Sith" even were. I don't know if Lucas ever used that term to describe a character. I guess what I'm getting to is if it cackles like a Sith and uses a red lightsaber like a Sith, you might as well call it what it is instead of using a "softer" term as a technicality to get around a larger issue (like the Sith supposedly being extinct).

So from watching TCW bonus content trailer it appears that Qui-Gon Jinn can somehow still manipulate things in the physical realm with the Force even though he is dead. He causes some candles to go out and even levitates Yoda. So this got me thinking that if Qui-Gon can do this then perhaps Darth Plagueis really can still manipulate midi-chlorians from the Netherworld of the Force to create a new body or revive his original one. It's just something that I immediately thought of when I saw that clip and I really think this whole concept of Qui-Gon and the Netherworld and perhaps Plagueis is getting more and more interesting as we learn more about it.

Two meters tall. Bipedal. Flowing black robes trailing from the figure and a face forever masked by a functional if bizarre black metal breath screen — a Dark Lord of the Sith was an awesome, threatening shape as it strode through the corridors of the rebel ship.

Fear followed the footsteps of all the Dark Lords. The cloud of evil which clung tight about this particular one was intense enough to cause hardened Imperial troops to back away, menacing enough to set them muttering nervously among themselves. Once-resolute rebel crew members ceased resisting, broke and ran in panic at the sight of the black armour — armour which, though black as it was, was not nearly as dark as the thoughts drifting through the mind within.​